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Renewable Energy News

Renewable Energy is giving away a free Renewable Energy E-Book. In this book you will find the following chapters.

Chapter 1: About Renewable Energy Chapter 2: About Cutting Down On Power Usage Chapter 3: See If Your Current Power Provider Has Alternatives To Go Green Chapter 4: Solar Power Chapter 5: Passive Solar Power Chapter 6: Solar Hot Water Chapter 7: Teach Children To Conserve Chapter 8: Energy Saving Bulbs Etc Chapter 9: What To Avoid Chapter 10: The Benefits Of Saving Power

With Donald J trump being inaugurated as 45th president of the USA, the war against climate change will take many steps back. It is widely expected that the Trump administration will rollback any progress made by the USA under the previous administration. Unfortunately Donald Trump does not believe in climate change and global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

Trump is busy wiping of information about climate change from the web. He has ordered that the Environmental Protection Agency to remove the climate change page from its website.

These moves raises concerns that Trump, could seek to alter research showing that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels does not contribute to global warming. Years of good work will be undone by this man.

What is a CSP or concentrated solar power?

CSP is used to produce electricity (sometimes called solar thermoelectricity, usually generated through steam). Concentrated-solar technology systems use mirrors or lenses with tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight onto a small area. The concentrated light is then used as heat or as a heat source for a conventional power plant (solar thermoelectricity). The solar concentrators used in CSP systems can often also be used to provide industrial process heating or cooling, such as in solar air-conditioning.

Concentrating technologies exist in five common forms, namely parabolic trough, enclosed trough, dish Stirlings, concentrating linear Fresnel reflector, and solar power tower.[15] Although simple, these solar concentrators are quite far from the theoretical maximum concentration.[16][17] For example, the parabolic-trough concentration gives about 1/3 of the theoretical maximum for the design acceptance angle, that is, for the same overall tolerances for the system. Approaching the theoretical maximum may be achieved by using more elaborate concentrators based on nonimaging optics.[18]

Different types of concentrators produce different peak temperatures and correspondingly varying thermodynamic efficiencies, due to differences in the way that they track the sun and focus light. New innovations in CSP technology are leading systems to become more and more cost-effective.

Commercial applications of Concentrated Solar Power

CSP is being widely commercialized and the CSP market has seen about 740 megawatt (MW) of generating capacity added between 2007 and the end of 2010. More than half of this (about 478 MW) was installed during 2010, bringing the global total to 1095 MW. Spain added 400 MW in 2010, taking the global lead with a total of 632 MW, while the US ended the year with 509 MW after adding 78 MW, including two fossil–CSP hybrid plants.[4] The Middle East is also ramping up their plans to install CSP based projects and as a part of that Plan, Shams-I which was the largest CSP Project in the world has been installed in Abu Dhabi, by Masdar. The largest CSP project in the world until January 2016 is Noor in Morocco.

There is considerable academic and commercial interest internationally in a new form of CSP, called STEM, for off-grid applications to produce 24 hour industrial scale power for mining sites and remote communities in Italy, other parts of Europe, Australia, Asia, North Africa and Latin America. STEM uses fluidized silica sand as a thermal storage and heat transfer medium for CSP systems. It has been developed by Salerno-based Magaldi Industries. The first commercial application of STEM will take place in Sicily from 2015.

CSP growth is expected to continue at a fast pace. As of January 2014, Spain had a total capacity of 2,300 MW making this country the world leader in CSP. Interest is also notable in North Africa and the Middle East, as well as India and China. The global market has been dominated by parabolic-trough plants, which account for 90% of CSP plants.

Commerzbank AG, Germany’s second-largest lender, expects a 10 percent decline in renewable energy financing deals after a spate of offshore wind projects moved ahead last year. The lender this year plans to arrange new loans with a volume of about 750 million euros ($837 million), focusing on Germany, western Europe and the U.S., Ingrid Spletter-Weiss, the head of bank’s renewable energies unit, told reporters on Tuesday in Hamburg. This follows a surprisingly strong 2014, when wind projects were accelerated to nail down subsidies before the German government cut aid, she said. “You need to really fight for good projects now,” Spletter-Weiss said. “We are seeing much more competition, in particular in the offshore market, which many players still didn’t dare to enter last year.” Europe has more than 91 percent of the world’s offshore turbine installations. The region’s industry needs 10 billion euros by the end of 2016 to expand by about 20 percent, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) estimated on July 30. Commerzbank’s renewable energy loan portfolio stood at almost 4 billion euros at the end of last year with onshore wind still accounting for a 70 percent share. The share of offshore wind, which made up 5 percent of the total volume, will probably increase to 10 percent in the coming two to three years as growth in the onshore sector slows, Spletter-Weiss said. …

South Africa saved R4 billion ($310 million) in fuel and by avoiding blackouts in the first half of 2015 due to renewable-energy projects, according to a study by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. From January to June, 800 megawatts of wind and 1 gigawatt of solar photovoltaic power-generation saved about R3.6 billion in diesel and coal-fuel costs, according to the Pretoria-based center. During 15 days in the period, renewables either prevented or limited rolling blackouts, the study showed.

South Africa’s state-owned power company Eskom has imposed rolling blackouts almost every other day this year as it struggles to meet demand. The government’s five-round program of clean-energy tenders has awarded more than 5 000 megawatts of projects since 2011.

A very windy day broke a record in Denmark on the 9th of July. They produced an astonishingly 40% more power through their wind farms as their daily needs. This feat was accomplished due to an unusually windy day.

Energy not gone to waste.

The extra energy didn’t go to waste. It was exported to Germany, Norway, and Sweden via interconnections between the countries electricity grids.

Denmark is at the forefront of clean and renewable energy and they proven that on the 9th of July 2015.

South Africa receives more than twice as much sunshine than Germany, where over 15 percent of the national electricity supply comes from renewable sources. South Africa is not even near that amount as of 2015

At the end of 2014 approximately 600 MW of wind and 1 000 MW of PV (Solar Power) are already online. (Excluding small scale developments for own use)

The potential for renewable energy in South Africa is enormous and as a country we should actively promote and invest in this technology.

Load Shedding is in full swing at the moment. It will be a fact that South Africans will have to live with & endure. Load Shedding will be here for many years. Load Shedding occurs when demand is greater than capacity to generate electricity. To avoid a total blackout of the power grid Eskom has to implement Load Shedding.

Load Shedding is implemented by switching of the power to certain areas for a certain time. There are several levels of Load Shedding. Load Shedding increases with the severity of the electricity demand & supply.

The following stages of Load Shedding are currently in place

Stage 1: Generation shortfall of up to 1 000 MW

Stage 2: Generation shortfall of up to 2 000 MW

Stage 3: Generation shortfall of up to 4 000 MW

How to reduce the effects of Load Shedding.

Load Shedding is an inconvenience to everybody in South Africa, from people to businesses. Some ways you can work around the effects are

Investment in solar energy is continuing in South Africa with the announcement on Thursday the 30th of may 2013 of Google’s $12m investment in the Northern Cape’s 96MW solar photovoltaic Jasper Power Plant.

Eskom the national power producer could see the first power procured from the first round of the independent power producer procurement programme by year-end. Many of the projects coming of the ground from the 18 preferred bidders in the first window of the Department of Energy’s renewable energy Independent Power Producer Procurement (IPP) programme already at build phase.

Independent Power Producers.

The first group IPP bid winners will generate a total of 631MW of electricity from solar power parks ranging in capacity from a small 5MW to larger plants. South Africa’s power supply is urgently in need of extra capacity as it has been running on a thin reserves since about 2008. In 2008 demand outstripped supply, causing a range of blackouts that damaged the economy to the tune of R50bn.

The Jasper project was developed and funded by US-based SolarReserve and South African companies Intikon Energy and the Kensani Group, as well as the Public Investment Corporation, the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the PEACE Humansrus Trust.

When completed, Jasper would be one of the largest solar installations in Africa, capable of generating enough electricity to power 30,000 South African homes, Google said in a statement.

The consortium is expecting to bid for an additional 1,500MW of solar photovoltaic projects in subsequent bid rounds.

At the start of this the week, South African Minister of Energy Dipuo Peters launched another of the projects from the first window of the IPP programme. The development of the RustMo1 Solar Power Plant is the first solar energy park in North West and the first renewable energy project that will supply power to the Eskom grid and produce 250,000MW of energy over the next 20 years.

This 7MW solar photovoltaic power plant was awarded to Momentous Energy, a local black-owned development company. The project includes the installation of 11 inverters and 29,808 photovoltaic solar modules, with a step-up transformer to connect to the 88kV substation.

South Africa is in dire need of more energy after 10 years of Eskom’s pleas for investment in generation capacity being ignored. Solar Power will become a major part of South Africa’s energy needs.

The investment in solar power is not only good for South Africa’s energy requirements it should add to highly needed employment as well.